Full disclosure: I meant to post this yesterday, Valentine’s Day. Wouldn’t that have been perfect? A romance-themed post for the most romantic day of the year? Well. I was too busy eating my weight in chocolate and heart-shaped pizza to even think of making this post. BUT, it is still February, I still have pink paper hearts hanging all over my house, so it is still as good a time as any to answer questions about my favorite couple in my WIP!

First, we have Ol.

Brown hair, beard, square jaw, perpetually growling, usually caked in a layer of grime, great lover and drawer of maps, depthless fount of information, has little to no patience, gets things done.

And then Simon.

Artist, working as an elementary school art teacher, messy black hair, glasses, cinnamon roll, sweet as candy, bitingly sarcastic, self-sacrificing, needs to learn to stand up for himself, kind as can be.

Now, onto the questions!

It’s 2017, and, I have to tell you, I’m very happy about that fact. See, 2016 was about as flaming a pile of dog feces for me as it was for most everyone else. I had many memorably terrible days, lost two family pets to old age, had periods of depression that stalled my writing progress immensely, and basically just felt like a failure for most of that calendar year. So. I was pretty happy to be slamming the gas pedal on December 31st and watch 2016 diminishing in the rearview mirror.

The first couple weeks of January have been rough, though, as my mom and I were both clobbered by a sinus infection/congested cough that would not release us from its sticky, snotty, feverish grip. So, here it is January 12, and I’m only just now starting to feel like a Productive Human Being again (who still occasionally coughs up quarter-sized gobs of mucus. Disgusting, but the constant and sudden expulsion of bodily fluids has become so normalized in this household that I’m utterly desensitized to the grossness.) Since I’m now ready to Get My Life Together (also known as being ready to Make Great Plans I May Never Take Any Strides to Actually Accomplish), I’m participating in PaperFury’s Beautiful Books: 2017 Writing Goals link up. Because I really, really do intend to make 2017 a year full of words.